


Finally Freedom

by Alabaster86



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-09
Updated: 2015-02-09
Packaged: 2018-03-11 08:27:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3320669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alabaster86/pseuds/Alabaster86
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Toph thinks about her life and makes the decision to join the Avatar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finally Freedom

Suffocating; Toph felt like she was suffocating in her bedroom, the door and window both locked tight, guards outside each, stuffed into her bed, the sheets restricting her movement.

“I’m a prisoner here,” she murmured to herself. “Mom and Dad will never understand. I’ll never have any friends. They’ll marry me off to some jerk and then I’ll be _his_ prisoner instead.”

Imagining a life like that stretching out before her, year after terrible year, made her want to scream. But that would draw unwanted attention.  Her parents would scurry into the room, worried that she’d been attacked or even worse, had an independent thought.  Her mother and father weren’t evil.  They tried in their own strange way. But they did not understand. Toph didn’t think they were capable of seeing her as she was; strong, cocky, skilled and bright.   In their sighted eyes, Toph would forever be helpless and weak.  In their bright eyes, she was a fragile girl who would grow into a fragile woman, someone who needed constant protection and care.  No matter the evidence thrust in their faces; somehow that didn’t count. It was as if they were incapable of seeing what was right in front of them. Sometimes Toph envied those with normal sight. Then she thought of her parents and realized that she could see far more and clearer than they could.  What was there to be envious of?

Letting out a puff of air, Toph turned her thoughts to the Avatar and his friends. They had a freedom now that she could not begin to comprehend. But she longed for it.  All she wanted was to be herself, her true self; no fancy dresses, no fancy hair, no perfect manners.  Toph could never be that here, in Gaoling, not anywhere near her home or her family. She had an opportunity now, a choice to make. 

Aang and Katara and Sokka were out there, sleeping, waiting until morning to continue their adventures. 

_They want me. They need me. They respect my earth bending. I could teach the Avatar. I could finally DO something._

Such an opportunity would never come again. Grinning now, her mind made up, Toph pried herself apart from the bedding, hopped out onto the floor and peeled off her nightgown. She found her Blind Bandit clothes and dressed efficiently before forcing her hair into a messy knot and shoving on her hair band.  She stuffed her pack with a few items and with deadly silence made a tunnel beneath her room, all the way to the other side of the estate’s gate.

With an ecstatic cry, a shout of independence and freedom, Toph emerged from below ground and ran towards her new companions. She could feel them out there, them and that huge beast.  And she trembled with excitement.

 

 

 


End file.
